---
title: "Symposium Flashback: Building an Empathetic Sales Team to Better Connect with Clients"
description: In this talk, Sean recounts his days leading start-up businesses and how a key to his success in sales was using empathy to connect with clients.
image: https://blog.matrixformedia.com/hubfs/00000001SeanYouTube.png
---

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# Symposium Flashback: Building an Empathetic Sales Team to Better Connect with Clients

 Posted on  October 30, 2017  by [Dan Tallarico](https://blog.matrixformedia.com/author/dan)

[media sales symposium](https://blog.matrixformedia.com/topic/media-sales-symposium), [start-up](https://blog.matrixformedia.com/topic/start-up)

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Sean Ammirati opens his talk at the 2017 [Media Sales Symposium](https://www.matrixformedia.com/conference/?hsLang=en-us) by saying, "Your business, no matter how big, was a start-up at one point."If every business began as a start-up, why should they not still embrace the entrepreneurial spirit that drives the growth and success of fledgling companies?

In this talk, Sean recounts his days heading up start-up businesses and how a key to his success in building revenue was using empathy. By listening, *truly listening,* to a client's problems he was able to find unique ways to solve their problems while growing revenue.

When you build trust through empathy, your client relationship looks more like a partnership and less like a list of transactions. In the future, any time they have an issue or need help, you'll be at the top of their list. This is perfect for when they need to build an advertising campaign targeted at a new demographic or need guidance on the best way to advertise digitally.

## **Takeaways from *Selling with Empathy***

- Customers care about their problems, not your solution. Try and frame your solutions as tools that solve their worst problems.
- Learn how to build an organization that encourages out-of-the-box thinking and entrepreneurship. One that takes risks to innovate and isn't afraid to fail.
- Get access to a state of the art tool that Sean designed at CMU to truly understand the needs of your clients.

**Presenter: ** Sean Ammirati, Partner @ Birchmere Labs & Birchmere Ventures, Adjunct professor at Carnegie Mellon University

*For more information about the Media Sales Symposium, as well as updates on the 2018 Media Sales Symposium, visit [matrixformedia.com/conference](https://www.matrixformedia.com/conference/?hsLang=en-us)*

 

 Tags: [media sales symposium](https://blog.matrixformedia.com/topic/media-sales-symposium), [start-up](https://blog.matrixformedia.com/topic/start-up)

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